


In Spite

by Amanuensis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, M/M, Slash, The Quidditch Pitch: The Changing Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-22
Updated: 2005-10-22
Packaged: 2018-10-26 10:58:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10785426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amanuensis/pseuds/Amanuensis
Summary: Snape isn't any good at the hurt/comfort thing. In fact, he's an ass.





	In Spite

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

Notes: For the Pornish Pixies Fantasy Fest request made by jadeprince -- "Severus Snape/Remus Lupin -- After Sirius's death, Severus isn't exactly good at the hurt/comfort thing. In fact, he's an ass."  
Thanks to betas cawti and florahart.

 

"At least there's no gravesite."

"What?" The word was out before Remus could check it. He'd heard what Snape had said. It had just been startling to hear him speak, after the long silence. Snape had entered the kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place without even a greeting, fetched tea, sat, and maintained his silence--characteristic for him, evenings that he was here.

"I said, 'At least there's no gravesite.'" Snape was turning his cup around in its saucer. "Depressing things, gravesites. You have to go and visit them. Cemetaries may have their beauty, but that's only when you're academically interested in taking rubbings of the headstones and no one you know is buried there."

Remus didn't respond. Snape wasn't talking about--. He never spoke about Sirius, not with hate, not with sympathy, not at all.

"So you won't have to visit a grave to feel close to him."

Remus stood so quickly he almost knocked over his own cup. "Excuse me," he said, as he headed for the door. Snape might not have a single redeeming social grace, but Remus's were ingrained, even when the recipient didn't deserve them.

 

"No body, either."

"What?" This time, he meant it. What had Snape said?

"Well--" That cup-turning thing again. "Most who grieve say it's worse when they haven't actually seen the body of the deceased. But think about it. No worries about what to do with it. Burial, cremation...no questions about whether autopsy should be done..."

Remus fled. No "excuse me" this time, no.

"And you don't have to think about it rotting," Snape called after him.

 

His evening routine was ruined. No more evening cups of tea in the kitchen. He couldn't risk it.

But unless he wanted to leave Grimmauld Place altogether--he wasn't ready for that, not yet--he was still going to encounter Snape. Which is why Snape was able to catch him in the hallway, three nights later.

"You'll never have to worry about him leaving you for someone else."

There was no what this time. Remus only stared.

"It is the usual end to relationships. They don't last. This one may be no different, but you'll never have to see him on the street with someone else, laughing and in love with a person who's not you, while you seethe and wither."

"Get. Out. Of. My. Way."

Snape blinked, stepped aside. As Remus pushed past, he thought that Snape looked almost surprised.

 

"Have you thought about what it will mean for your next relationship?"

Remus choked and almost banged his head on the medicine cabinet. Snape had pushed the door to the bathroom open. While Remus was in it.

"Nrth!" was all the indignity he could manage around the mouthful of toothpaste.

"While a new paramour may fear he or she won't measure up to your lost love," Snape continued, oblivious, "he or she won't have to fear that you would ever go back to him. That's reassuring, for a new romantic entanglement."

"OUT!" roared Remus, not even bothering to spit first.

He would make sure he was not in the house when Snape was scheduled to come for Order meetings. Bugger the Wolfsbane. That, and look into securing a new flat. Now, dammit.

 

He really should have been saving money in anticipation of the new flat, but he couldn't give up his Saturday shopping treat at Flourish and Blotts. So few things brought him comfort, these days.

He was leafing through By Forbidden Glades: One Centaur's Journey and debating whether Curse of the Curse-Breaker would be more interesting reading, when a feeling like an itch between his shoulder blades pricked at him. He looked up and turned.

Snape was standing just a few feet away, face utterly passive.

"You'll never have to watch him grow old, or infirm."

Remus felt everything recede. Everything except for Snape, who would not recede, would not go away, who sat horribly in the center of Remus's vision like a target that needed to be run through with the most vicious spell known to wizardkind.

Shaking with the effort not to touch his wand, Remus put down the book, turned, and left the shop.

 

He wasn't ten steps away from the floo when it flared to life behind him. Remus spun about to see Snape stepping out of the green flames.

"I was--"

Remus didn't give him a chance to say more. "You sick little vermin." And because it wasn't really his wand he wanted to use, it was his fists, he gave in a little to that urge and seized Snape by the arms, the fabric of his bat-like black robes twisting under Remus's hands. "You fucking piece of shite. He's dead, do you understand? He's dead and he can't fight you anymore! He was fucking sick of fighting you ages before he died! If you still need your revenge on me, then hex me, slug me, put fucking arsenic into that next batch of Wolfsbane--but leave him out of it! He's DEAD!"

He had Snape up against the wall before he realized the man wasn't fighting back. Snape looked as wide-eyed as ever he'd seen him. Remus didn't let go, though, didn't pull back. Couldn't, yet.

"Lupin." Remus waited. "I'm not--this wasn't about revenge."

"The hell it isn't."

"I'm...I thought it might make you feel better, you bloody mongrel."

Remus stood there, feeling his own heartbeat mark the passage of time. "Better."

"Yes. I thought--" Snape stopped. "Well. I thought."

Now it was Remus's turn to be left blinking. He let go of Snape's arms, took a step backward. "Better," he repeated, not able to get to any other words.

Arms freed, Snape folded them, his face looking far more natural now that it was wearing its usual scowl. "It wasn't about revenge. Even I have the sense to allow death to cancel out a murder attempt."

"Snape." He ran a hand through his hair. "You can't comfort for toffee, you pillock."

Snape continued to scowl. "I've not--not had much practice at it."

"Trust me. That wasn't it." He knew his legs couldn't support him any longer, and collapsed upon the sofa. "The last fucking thing I want to hear is how I'm better off, you utter twat. Christ."

Snape's eyes flickered to one side. "I suppose that was my theme, yes."

"Listening would have been good. Companionable distraction would have been good. Comfort sex would have been good. Not--rubbish about us not breaking apart, or..."

"Ah." Snape was nodding--and suddenly sitting on the couch next to Remus. "That...last one. I could do that."

Remus stared.

Then: "You complete and total arse."

Remus reached out and did not seize, no, nothing done so quickly as a seize. It was a slow grip of the neck of Snape's robes, and an inexorable drawing down. The mouth was not Sirius's, and he would not pretend it was, but it was willing to kiss and be kissed, and even more inexperienced at it than he was. Had anyone else made such an offer, Remus would've known he was being pitied, but Snape didn't do pity. Good thing, that.

He was unbuttoning Snape's robes. "Now would be the time for you to start returning the favor, idiot," he snarled, and was rewarded by Snape's hands jumping to obey, opening Remus's robes with haste as if to make up for their belated efforts. Remus had his hands at Snape's groin, and found Snape was already half-hard. Definitely not pity.

He caressed that warm, rising length in his hand as Snape got inside Remus's own robes--many fewer buttons, the man had no excuse--and uncovered his cock. Remus wasn't hard at all, not yet. That didn't matter. It wasn't as if Snape deserved to have this made easy for him, after that blunderous behavior.

But he'd underestimated, forgotten that the feel of a hand that wasn't his own on his cock would make his own response surge like that. He'd also forgotten the dexterity of Snape's hands, far better at seduction than his speech centers were. Remus's prick was thickening, already heavy with blood and arousal, and he pushed his hips up into those useful hands, murmuring, "Yes...", squeezing Snape's cock as he did.

Snape also squeezed, and stroked, and reached under to fondle his balls, and to do a dozen more things that didn't have proper verbs but felt incredible. One of the definable things was to gently remove Remus's hand from Snape's cock, and to press the center of Remus's chest in order to push him back against the couch, and from there Snape went to his knees in front of Remus, opening his mouth and drawing the cock into his lips with a liquid suction that almost had Remus's eyes rolling back into his head. Snape drew in more of the cock, encircled the head and worked the divot in the underside with his tongue, and then slid that tongue further down. Remus gasped as it touched the base, teased all the way back to his balls, even as Snape's eyes flickered up to his, checking his response.

Snape's fingers formed a gentle cage for his balls, lightly squeezing as his mouth continued to suck Remus's cock, not so lightly, not so gentle. From the flickerings of his tongue over the glans to the contracted ring of his lips sliding up and down the shaft, Remus was on the verge of coming in a matter of seconds that seemed barely to get into double digits. And then he was coming, as Snape's tongue swirled about the head again, coming with a groan he didn't try to keep back as he shuddered into Snape's mouth, shuddered and spent and thought of Sirius despite everything, but it wasn't as if that was unexpected.

Head tilted back against the sofa, he thought that he should get Snape back up on the couch and live up to his retort about returning favors. But he couldn't, not yet. His eyes were stinging.

He became aware it was from tears. Not great shuddering sobs or anything, but wetness spilling over all the same.

It pissed him off. No, that wasn't right; they were coming because he was pissed off. He blinked, trying to see through them to glare at Snape. "I'm just...so goddamn angry," he said lamely, realizing he still sounded like some big girl's blouse despite the profanity.

Snape was sitting back on his heels, nodding. "Yes. That's one of the usual stages. Disbelief, anger, bargaining--"

"Snape. Shut the fuck up."

Snape did. He looked down at his own lap--Remus noted his cock was no less in need of attention--and murmured, so softly that Remus knew it was so that he could deny it had ever been said, "Sorry."

Remus swiped at his eyes. "Look." He pulled at Snape's sleeve, directing him back up to the sofa. "I have this brilliant suggestion. You--" and here he took hold of Snape's cock again, stroking it in his encircling fingers from base to tip, beginning to set up a rhythm--"don't talk. Don't try to cheer me up, don't try to analyze me. Nothing that involves speaking. The comfort sex, now--" he squeezed more firmly-- "we can work with."

"I suppose we can," said Snape, but the last word was lost in a squeak.


End file.
